SPOCK: I will continue, Doctor. According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus Four, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law.

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It's unlikely the the computer and Spock would refer to him as Governor if he was some guy off a transport who declared himself Dictator. It has to be a position given him by Earth, the Federation or the Colonists.

And if it's the latter, there's no reason why it couldn't be the outcome of a successful coup.

Remember that the colonists were docile as sheep, or else it wouldn't have been possible to slaughter half of them. It's not even a case of Kodos hiring ruthless gunmen to mow down a mob: supposedly, the deaths were "without pain", as if he had the authority to tell people to take their suicide pills. Now, that works both with a religiously worshipped longterm leader and a recently arrived messiah.

Having "Kodos" arrive rather than preexist serves two purposes: there are fewer people who "really" know him, and there's the chance that Kirk arrived with him, hence didn't dwell on the planet long without his parents (of whom only mom could have been with him there without becoming a witness, presumably - that is, she could have become a victim instead).

Having Kodos preexist blocks most paths for rationalizing the eyewitness business, is all.

The Star Trek: Federation book speculates that the colony was running out of food, and Kodos presumed there was no ship that could reach the colony in time to provide needed food, hence the executions as part of a lottery-induced rationing. Kodos failed to take into account the higher speed of the new Constitution class ships, and the U.S.S. Enterprise under April arrived in time that the executions were beyond unnecessary.

One would think that the married Kirks both being assigned to the Kelvin was an oddity, and more often than not two Starfleet officers in the service together wouldn't be able to be together - similar to Geordi's parents in TNG. Maybe in the Prime Universe Winona Kirk retired from Starfleet after the Kelvin expedition?

This is basically what Diane Carey alludes to in the novel Best Destiny when young rebel Jim Kirk sulks at his dad and unca April taking him to another field outing...

The Star Trek: Federation book speculates that the colony was running out of food, and Kodos presumed there was no ship that could reach the colony in time to provide needed food, hence the executions as part of a lottery-induced rationing.

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This smells to high heaven, though. If the planet was habitable, then 8,000 people could sustain themselves indefinitely even if the crops utterly failed (speculation) and all stored food was rendered inedible (episode dialogue). If the planet was uninhabitable outside some domes, then rapid resupply would have to have been built into the colony concept, and cutting of rations would always be enough for waiting out the supply runs.

It takes some ingenuity to turn crop failure or stores poisoning into an actual calamity, and near-hypnotic powers to convince the colonists that mass murder is a viable solution; in the end, it seems almost inevitable that this Kodos character must have engineered the whole crisis from the very start, in order to satisfy his murderous lust. Perhaps Kodos poisoned the supplies? Or perhaps he took advantage of "natural" damage to supplies and exacerbated the situation by falsifying lab results and declaring all food unusable?

One would think that the married Kirks both being assigned to the Kelvin was an oddity, and more often than not two Starfleet officers in the service together wouldn't be able to be together - similar to Geordi's parents in TNG.

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Yes, there's the odd dialogue in "Balance of Terror" where the Martine/Tomlinson wedding somehow will alter the fact that Tomlinson is Martine's superior officer. Will one or the other have to take a transfer? Will one or the other lose rank? Or is Tomlinson just kidding?

Yes, there's the odd dialogue in "Balance of Terror" where the Martine/Tomlinson wedding somehow will alter the fact that Tomlinson is Martine's superior officer. Will one or the other have to take a transfer?

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Probably.

Tomlinson is not the captain, after all; he doesn't have the latitude to have his wife serve under his command, like Riker and Troi would later do on the Titan.

I think that in Tomlinson and Martine's case there would be a fair whack of grumbling from the rest of his phaser control team that he was somehow favoring her. Riker wouldn't have that problem, because he's the captain, and he can have whoever he wants on his bridge.